Thread by @elvismiggell, Long one incoming.TLDR: I’m going to downsize my Twitter for a bit [...]

Long one incoming.

TLDR: I’m going to downsize my Twitter for a bit to deal with some of the struggles I’m having with both negativity, over use and my own ego.

For a few weeks now I’ve been noticing some things that I’ve not felt comfortable with. During lockdown, especially the ‘second half’ for me I’ve tried to focus on bringing positivity and making Twitter a fun place to be.

I know I’ve had some success with that - I’ve seen some great stuff. But I know I’ve also made others feel uncomfortable for which I’m sorry. As a general rule, I wasn’t sharing much negativity in my own feed, I was just dealing with it privately.

During therapy and conversations with a therapist friend over the last few years I’ve learned a bit about “holding space” and making space for both the positive and negative in life.

I’d been noodling on doing a thread making space for more negatives - encouraging people to feel like they could talk about and share those too - but I guess I felt like I’d backed myself into a corner with the constant efforts to bring positivity.

Various Twitter Shagger threads for the last couple of months have prompted me to look at that side of myself. Until recently I’d felt fairly comfortable with it. I’ve always been a bit of a “Lonely Guy Online” and I’ve talked to, met and even dated folks on here over the years .

This week, I looked in that “mirror” and didn’t like what I saw in that side of me during lockdown. I’ve been too lonely. Too quick to form connections. Struggled too much with hypotheticals of “once lockdown is done”. People can and have been hurt by that and I’m sorry.

Call it poor communication, emotional immaturity or the extremes of lockdown. It all boils down to not being satisfied that I’ve met the standards I want to apply to myself. My ‘self report’ card in that aspect of my self will always read “needs work”.

And no, just because you personally may not have seen that side of me, doesn’t mean it hasn’t existed in DMs. People are complicated, and I’m uncomfortable with the idea that some folks may be assuming that just because I’ve been positive I’m “good” or don’t have big flaws too.

I’m also increasingly conscious of what I refer to as the “dopamine hit” of Twitter. The endless quest for “input”. Opening, closing and re-opening social media looking for updates and new stuff doesn’t feel healthy to me.

I’m sure many of us have seen big increases in our use of Twitter. Mine wasn’t exactly great before lockdown and I’ve been working throughout it as well but I know it’s rocketed as I’ve not been able to do regular things like running club to get social time with other humans.

I’m not entirely comfortable with that and I want to work on reducing it a bit - I’ve taken Twitter off my phone and just checking it occassionally on my iPad now to try and help with that.

Finally, (see how this is all adding up?) I’ve got a LOT on at work for the next few weeks. The last couple of weeks have been very intensive and pretty draining for me in that area too. Lots of projects are ramping up.

Add it all up and it’s time for me to change some stuff.

I’m going to unfollow a bunch of you. It’s not an observation on your worth as people at all, but I really need to “shrink the circle” I’m in and make Twitter a bit more manageable for me to keep up with.

In the past I’ve done that a bit using Lists but that’s not working so well this time around. Over the next few days I’ll probably shrink my following number pretty radically. I’ve done it before, and I’m sure it’ll grow and shrink again - it’s a cycle.

Again, to reinforce, that’s pretty arbitrary and I’m not saying you’ve done things wrong or are bad people in any way. I just need to change my focuses a little and be at least somewhat quieter on here.

I’m sure some will view this as a massive, pretentious, ego-centric, narcissistic, wank fest. To some extent they’ll be absolutely right. I’ve agonised over whether to share and acknowledge this all or just quietly crack on with it.

Between several folks reaching out to ask if I’m ok over the last few days where I’ve been quiet & others encouraging me to feel comfortable sharing the “negative thread” I figured I would share this, but there’s every chance I’m wrong & should have just gotten on with things.

I’ll still be around and joining in, but I’ll also be trying to apply the words of wisdom an old mentor gave me; “You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in proportion.”

And yes I’ll still post pictures of Mara for you all.

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